1945, Bijnor, a man went door to door with
a basket of leeches. He never shouted his arrival
like the ice-candy man calling Ice!
Instead, the basket came unannounced, he’d
set it down when the door opened, Is there
illness in the house? My father was five,
his mother had a fever, it was too early
…
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘Of the 36 views of Fuji, this one is the strangest: / the great wave off Kanagawa, frozen and tempestuous, / both sound and silence.’
‘Words only point to experience, they can’t replace it.’
Vanessa Onwuemezi and Colin Herd discuss UFOs, relation, and the search for an inner sense of home.
‘How do we perform our politics, our outrage and our grievances when we are among a group?’
Anthony Anaxagorou talks about his collection Heritage Aesthetics.
‘My response to art was quick, metabolic and revelatory, while my response to sex was a muddle of delayed reactions and missed libidinal signals.’
